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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26656672">What About the Boy?</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheBeckster/pseuds/TheBeckster'>TheBeckster</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Jak and Daxter</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alcohol, Angst and Feels, Canonical Character Death, Gen, I only spent like an hour on this. it's gonna be rough, Not Beta Read, Post-Jak 3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 10:53:44</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,567</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26656672</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheBeckster/pseuds/TheBeckster</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Sig had made two promises to Damas. First, he would protect his son. Second, he would bring Mar back to his father. But Sig failed, and Damas was dead now.<br/>Then Jak showed up and said, "I know what happened to Damas' son."</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Jak &amp; Sig (Jak and Daxter)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>48</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>What About the Boy?</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I got all up in my feels about Sig and his relationships to Damas, Jak, and Baby Jak over on tumblr and then this was made.</p><p> </p><p>  <s>I wrote it quick, I didn't really proof read it. Be gentle and forgiving of any mistakes.</s></p><p> </p><p>PS - Valuvr03, if you've got an AO3 I'll gift this to you, since you are partially responsible for its existence</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Sig ducked out of the victory party early. Let it not be said that Daxter didn’t know how to scrape together enough booze and merriment to make even sand-crusted Wastelanders forget how truly broken the world was. That kid had a gift for bringing people together. But Sig wasn’t really in the mood for a party, even if he had cause to celebrate.</p><p>Before he had gone riding off to war, Damas had named Sig his successor to the Wasteland throne. Sig hadn’t <em>actually</em> thought that would be necessary. But Damas hadn’t made it back from Haven alive. His oldest friend and mentor was gone.</p><p>Haven didn’t mourn Damas like Spargus did. Haven had been without a king long enough to hardly miss him. Spargus had sent Damas off to the next life with all the pomp and ceremony he deserved. It was his wake that Sig left early, lingering near the back of the room as Daxter regaled an increasingly tipsy crowd with tales of his triumph over the Dark Makers. When the Ottsel was suitably distracted, Sig stole a bottle of the strongest stuff off the bar and slipped out the door.</p><p>He went up to the throne room, figuring nobody would bother looking for him there until tomorrow. The throne loomed in front of him – his throne now, he supposed – but he didn’t take his seat there yet. Instead he eased himself down on one of the lower steps, pulled off his boots, and soaked his feet in the cool water.</p><p>He was tired. <em>Precursors,</em> he was so fucking tired.</p><p>Sig opened the bottle, tossed the cap off over his shoulder, and took a long drink. He caught his reflection in the gently rippling surface of the water and laughed dryly. If Damas were here, he’d give Sig a swift kick in the ass for moping around like this. Nothing good ever came from sitting on your ass, feeling sorry for yourself.</p><p>Sig took another long drink. He stared at the tattoo on his arm, four letters that crawled around the skin, reminding him what was most important. <em>Life</em>. When it was new, it was meant to memorialize a friend, a comrade killed by a Metal Head. Over the years, more lives applied themselves to the ink beneath his skin. And now when he saw it, he would think of Damas and… and little Mar.</p><p>Biggest failure of Sig’s life.</p><p>It was his job to protect the kid, keep the baby safe from anyone who might want to hurt or use him. And when it came down to it, Sig hadn’t been there. Five minutes was the difference between him protecting the kid and his mom, and utter failure.</p><p>By now… the kid had to be dead. If he had been taken to Haven there was no way a kid that young and small could have survived everything that city had gone through. The Metal Head invasion, the war within the city, KG deathbots, and the collapse of the palace, too many children had died in Haven over the last couple years. Who was going to notice one more unclaimed orphan?</p><p>Sig had promised to bring Damas’ son back to him. He had failed that job too.</p><p>Maybe he should stop making promises.</p><p>The rattling elevator drew Sig’s attention. He looked up to tell whoever decided to bother him to go away, but the words died in his throat. He knew that blond hair and blue shirt. If anyone else deserved some time alone after everything, it was Jak.</p><p>The thrice minted hero dropped heavily onto the step beside Sig, he took the bottle when it was offered wordlessly. The kid had taken Damas’ death pretty hard. Sig wasn’t surprised, he had seen how much the younger man had grown to respect Damas. Hell, if things had been different, with a little more training and grooming, Sig wouldn’t have been surprised if he declared Jak his successor. They two of them were remarkably alike, in more ways than he suspected either of them realized.</p><p>Jak was watching Sig carefully, his eyes trained on his face. Several times he opened his mouth as if to speak, but opted for a drink instead. After the third of forth aborted conversation starter, Sig finally said, “Out with it, Chili Pepper, or just leave me to drink in peace.”</p><p>Jak was quiet for a moment more, as if he expected Daxter to jump in and start the conversation, but the Ottsel wasn’t here. The kid would have to get whatever was weighing him down off his chest on his own.</p><p>“I know what happened to Damas’ son.”</p><p>Sig turned to look at him fully, not quite sure he had heard that correctly. Hope bloomed in his chest. “Mar? You know where he is? Is he alive? Is he okay?”</p><p>Jak laughed dryly, quietly, “He’s had better days, but…” he reached into his pocket and pulled something out and placed it in Sig’s hands.</p><p>Sig knew what it was without having to even look properly. It was what he had been searching for for the last three years. Mar’s seal, the emblem that would identify the kid. He was supposed to always wear it; he hadn’t been without the seal since his birth!</p><p>“Where did you get this?”</p><p>“It’s mine,” Jak said.</p><p>“No.” Sig shook his head slowly. Jak wasn’t a thief, and he wouldn’t have taken this from a defenseless child, of even from a child’s dead body. Where the hell did he get this from?</p><p>Jak drew a deep breath. “You remember the kid Daxter and I went to rescue when we defeated Kor? The one with the Underground?”</p><p>Sig shrugged. He hadn’t been involved with the Underground or their side of the battle against the Baron. He had settled in with Krew in hopes the gang lord’s connections to even the darkest corners of the city would help him turn up any clue about the boy. But he vaguely remembered Daxter babbling about some kid that got sent through a rift gate. With a little prying, Jak had eventually revealed that he and his friends had traveled through time somehow, from peaceful Sandover village, Haven’s precursor.</p><p>“That kid was me. I was born in this place, in this time, but I grew up in Sandover. We had to send the kid back so he could grow up and become me, and destroy Kor, or he would stay in that time and be safe because I already saved him.” Jak shook his head. “Either way, before the kid left, he gave me the seal. Our seal of Mar.” Jak took the seal back and turned it over in his hands. He was quiet for a long moment before continuing. “I didn’t realize what the seal meant, nobody told me who his father was or why he was important. I didn’t even realize he was Damas’ son until he told me. When he was dying, he said I would know his son Mar from the seal he wore around his neck.”</p><p>Sig was dumbfounded. What Jak was suggesting was impossible. Little Mar was six years old, Jak was eighteen. He could accept that the kid Jak had connected with had been Mar, and that Mar was so far out of reach now, he couldn’t return. But the jump between Jak had connected to a lost little kid and had been given a gift, and Jak was that same kid, grown up and angry was a bit too far.</p><p>“It’s poor taste to joke about something like this, Jak,” he growled, “I’d expect that kind of shit from Daxter, not you.”</p><p>“I know it sounds crazy, Sig. Ask anybody, even Veger. He took me in the first place.”</p><p>Sig growled again at the mention of that rat-politician. Veger had always seemed suspicious, but he kept himself so scrupulously clean, even Krew didn’t have any dirt on the bastard. Sig had never been able to get close to him.</p><p>He looked back at Jak. His face was honest, even if he was doing his best to keep any emotion off it. Damas hadn’t liked showing weakness like that either. It wasn’t in Jak’s nature to joke about something like that, if he said that he and the kid were one and the same, and the kid was Damas’ son, then Jak believed that <em>he</em> was Damas’ son.</p><p>All this time, he had Damas’ son right there and he had never known. That trigger-happy lunatic with a death wish… he should have known. There was so much Damas in the kid. And, Sig realized, in a way he had kept his promise to Damas. He had found his son, protected him, taught him what his father couldn’t, kept an eye on him while he ran off trying to save the world. He had even returned Mar to his father – he had been the one to slip Ashelin the Wastelander beacon before the council exiled Jak.</p><p>Sig laugh, low and gentle, and threw his arm around Jak’s shoulders. “Shit, Chili Pepper, at least you made it back.” He fell sober for a moment, looking him over solemnly. “A shame Damas never knew but… he woulda been proud of you, Jak. I know he would have.”</p><p>Jak almost smiled, but Sig saw his eyes light up. “Thanks, Sig. I had a good teacher.”</p>
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